by Rhoda Baxter
He went up to his mother and gave her a quick hug. To his surprise, she wrapped her arms around him and held him, her cheek pressed against his. ‘We love you, Peter.’
‘I know Mum,’ he said. ‘I sometimes forget, that’s all.’
Sally was floating in her tranquillity. It was daytime, she could tell from the routine noises that came in through her door. She didn’t know what day it was, but she knew that Peter would come. He had mentioned something about his mother the day before. Sally couldn’t remember what, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it was something unpleasant. The old bat didn’t like her anyway. She remembered all too well the sniffy look Diane had given her when Peter introduced her. And the involuntary gasp when she’d realised that, two months after getting together, they were engaged.
Sally felt a stab of satisfaction. It had been fast work, that. She’d known, from the minute she kissed him and dragged him to the floor in the empty house, that she wanted to have him for herself. She’d always known she wanted the good life. To live in middle class comfort. Peter, bless him, was sweet and caring and so beautifully impressionable. He would give her everything she wanted, provided she didn’t push her luck. He wanted a family, that was obvious. Sally wasn’t sure how she felt about kids, apart from that she didn’t like them. Other people, usually ones with kids running round their ankles, had told her that there was a biological clock that somehow drove them to reproduce. If that happened, then well and good. Otherwise, there were ways she could keep safe. So long as he got a decent amount of sex, he would think she was actually trying.
Now that she had a sense of time, she was beginning to realise that she’d been in hospital for more than just a day or two. Weeks probably. With nothing to do but listen, she was hearing more about Peter’s business than she had ever done before. She still wasn’t desperately interested, but it was better than listening to the radio that was interrupted by nurses talking to each other.
She had looked Peter’s company up at Companies House the day after they’d met, just to check before she hitched herself to him, but she hadn’t really understood the work behind it. She also realised that she’d never really paid attention to Peter himself. Physically, of course she did, but she’d never taken the time to get to know him as a person. His hopes, his dreams. To an extent, he’d never made an effort to talk to her about that sort of thing either, what with the whirlwind romance and the wedding planning, there just hadn’t been time. Now time was all she had.
She discovered that her husband worked too hard. He treated his work with the same level of seriousness that he showed when slicing onions, working with steady concentration to produce fine, even slices. She remembered him smiling a lot, but he didn’t sound very smiley these days. In fact, he sounded heavy and tired. She briefly wondered if he’d changed, or whether it was just the fact that she was ill that was making him a bit down. Not surprising really, she herself would have been pretty sad if she was married to someone who was in hospital. Or rather, she would have been annoyed. It was a sign of what a nice guy Peter was that he chose to see it as sad, not just a bloody nuisance.
‘Hello, Peter,’ came the voice of a nurse. ‘How are you today?’
‘I’m good thanks, Judy. You?’
Sally’s spirits rose. Oh good. Peter was here. At least things would be interesting. He’d talk and maybe read her something from those books he seemed to always have with him. Sometimes they were boring, but mostly, they were okay.
There was a pause and Peter said, ‘How is she?’
‘You’re doing okay, aren’t you Sally,’ said the nurse, loudly. Sally hated that patronising tone. If she were really doing okay, she wouldn’t be lying here unable to feel anything, would she?
‘Has she said anything?’
‘Let me check … no, nothing last night.’
‘Oh. Okay. Thanks.’ There was another pause. Presumably the nurse was leaving the room. When Peter spoke again, his voice was closer.
‘Hello darling,’ he said. His voice was normal, not slightly raised as the nurse’s had been when she visited. She wished she could say hello back. The tranquillity held her, not restrained, just unable to struggle. She had a vague feeling that she should be able to do something with her body, but had no idea what that might be or how to do it. She would have checked what her body looked like, but in the tranquillity there was nothing to see. Sound was all there was.
‘I’m only here for a bit today,’ he said, his tone apologetic. ‘I said I’d help out with preparing the common room on the third floor for redecoration. They needed volunteers.’
Well that sounded tedious. What did he want to do that for?
‘Mum and Dad came round the other day,’ Peter carried on. ‘We talked. They… seemed to think I need to get out more.’
Ah well, that explained it. She wondered what that old cow had said to Peter. Having that dry old witch for a mother-in-law was going to be one of the few downsides to being married to Peter. Of course, Peter always thought the best of his mum. It was probably a mother-son thing. She thought, fleetingly, about her own waste-of-space mother. Mothers and daughters saw each other more clearly.
‘Sally,’ said Peter suddenly. ‘Do you think I’m selfish?’
What? Where the buggering hell had that come from? His mother, probably. That woman knew no shame. The fact that Sally couldn’t actually communicate with Peter wasn’t good enough for her. Noooo. She had to make him feel bad about coming to visit too. Bitch.
Sally wanted to say ‘No! I don’t think you’re selfish. I think you’re the kindest man I’ve ever met. You come here every day. You talk to me, not even knowing if I can hear you.’ She wanted to hold his hand, feel his skin against her palms and look into his face and say ‘I think you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met’, or some other platitude to make him feel better. But of course, she couldn’t. She had no hands to hold him with. No eyes to see him with. No voice to tell him. For the first time since waking up in the tranquillity, she was annoyed. She hadn’t wanted out before. Now she did. And it made her angry.
‘Val had a baby six months ago. I meant to go and see her, I honestly did. But stuff got in the way and I kept putting it off.’ Peter sounded miserable now. ‘Then I forgot. Now the baby is six months old and Val thinks I don’t care. Worse still, Alex and little Terry think I don’t care. That makes me the worst uncle ever.’
Wait, Val had another baby? Sally thought back to her wedding. There had been no bump on Val. Sally had only met Val a couple of times, but she was sure that Val was the sort of odious yummy mummy that would tell everyone about how wonderfully fertile she was. Definitely. She hadn’t mentioned anything at the wedding, so maybe she was still only in the early stages then … and the baby was six months old. So … the wedding had been at least ten months ago, if not longer. Bloody hell. How long had she been in this place for then?
Chapter Five
Peter almost chickened out before he entered the third floor common room. The furniture had been removed, leaving an enormous space. There were people everywhere, sanding skirting boards and painting walls. That jovial man that seemed to bounce around everywhere putting up posters spotted him hovering by the door and bounced up to him.
‘Hello, I’m Harry,’ he said, offering Peter a chubby hand to shake. ‘Are you coming to join us?’
‘I am.’ There, he was committed now. ‘I’m Peter Wesley. Someone said you needed volunteers …’
‘Brilliant. Come on in and we’ll find you something to do.’ Harry led him to the other side of the room. A few people looked up from their work to smile or nod at him. Mostly the conversations didn’t cease. There was a smattering of laughter from a group who were busy stripping wallpaper from the far wall.
Grace waved to him from across the room. She was wearing a paint spattered shirt meant for someone much wider than her a
nd a pair of worn jeans. Her hair was pulled back and the plait tucked into the back of her shirt so that it didn’t get paint on it. The plait pulled the collar of her shirt askew slightly, revealing a glimpse of collarbone. It was the most unflirtatious outfit Peter had ever seen. Yet, the oversized shirt only served to highlight how slim she was underneath it. He tried to imagine Sally wearing anything so unaffected. No, he decided. Sally would never be seen so plain and unadorned. In the few months that he’d lived with her, he hadn’t seen her without make-up for more than a few minutes.
Thinking of Sally drove a splinter of sadness into his thoughts. This was closely followed by guilt. He shouldn’t be looking at another woman. His wife was down the corridor. He quietly took the paint brush Harry gave him and got to work.
Grace risked glancing across the room to where Peter was on his knees, painting the skirting boards. If she’d known he was going to be there, she would have worn something a bit more flattering than her father’s old shirt and jeans that she’d had since uni. Next to him, Harry was telling him one of his interminable jokes. Peter seemed to be listening and smiling. He seemed less bowed down by life already. Harry had that effect on people. Good old Harry.
The redecorating was going well. Grace had been sandpapering the old wooden window frames all morning. Her arm was starting to ache. After the tea break, she’d swap with someone. She stopped to drag a forearm across her forehead and lowered the paper mask that was keeping the dust out. The air that rushed through was surprisingly cool. She stood up and inhaled deeply. These masks certainly retained the heat. She thought about her mother in the last few weeks of her life. How uncomfortable she must have been with the mask over her face and the tube down her throat. The memory squeezed her heart. She had done what was best for her mother, for as long as she could. When her mother died, there had been a lot to do — the funeral to organise, the various people to be informed, so many people to thank. She had handled it all by herself, just as she handled everything that went before. She was used to having no extended family to lean on, but seeing the small gathering at the funeral, which consisted of mostly nursing staff and a few old colleagues of her mothers, had saddened her. Still, that was the price of independence. Grace pulled the mask on and got back to scrubbing.
She was so focused on her task that she didn’t notice Harry until her tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Time for tea my darling,’ he said.
‘Oh, cheers.’ Grace removed her mask again and let it hang around her neck. ‘Give me a minute, I’ll go wash my hands before I take that.’
When she got back, Harry was inspecting her window frame. ‘Good job there, Grace.’
‘Thank you.’ It was satisfying seeing the old wood clear from the horrible lumpy varnish that had been on before. A feeling of accomplishment. It made a change to do something which bore such immediate effects. She gratefully took the cup of tea and biscuits that Harry gave her, and sat down on the floor. ‘I wouldn’t mind a change of job though,’ she said.
‘I thought you liked being a scientist.’
‘Ha, ha, very funny. I meant, my arm’s aching from sandpapering.’
‘I’ll swap with you,’ he said. ‘The view’s better over there.’ He nodded over to Peter.
‘Harry!’ said Grace, in a shocked whisper. ‘You’re a taken man and so is he.’
Harry grinned. ‘He keeps glancing at you, you know. When he thinks no one’s watching him. I think he might have a thing for you, my darling.’
Grace felt her heart thump louder. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘He just doesn’t know anyone else, that’s all.’
‘Well, the elusive Peter Wesley, never comes to any events, until you ask him and suddenly, there he is. The man’s wife’s been out of action for a while now …’
‘Don’t be horrible.’
They both turned to look at Peter, who seemed to sense being stared at and looked up.
‘Tea break,’ Harry called over. ‘Want one?’
‘Oh, yes please.’ Peter stood up and dusted himself off. He took his glasses off and blew on them to get the dust off. He looked different to normal. Grace realised it was the first time she’d seen him without a preoccupied frown on his forehead.
Peter walked across to her, stretching his arms as he walked. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not bad. You?’ She gave him a smile, hoping it came across as relaxed and friendly, rather than nervous and slightly embarrassed. ‘Glad you came?’
‘I am actually.’ He sounded almost surprised. ‘It’s nice to do something physical. Something different.’ He glanced around the room as people milled around with their mugs, inspecting each other’s work and appreciating progress. ‘It’s nice to meet people too. I didn’t expect everyone to be so …’
‘Friendly?’ Grace finished the sentence for him. ‘I know what you mean. I thought it’s such a sad place, it must be hard to laugh here. But this is different from a hospital, I guess. When something’s for the long term, you just have to accept it. It’s a different sort of normal.’
Peter gave her a sidelong look. ‘Yes … I suppose that’s true.’
‘It’s nice to talk to people in the same position, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It definitely is.’ He hesitated. ‘Thank you. For asking me to help. I wouldn’t have thought to come otherwise.’
Grace waved his thanks away. ‘I’m glad you changed your mind and came along after all.’
They took their teas to the window. Peter looked out and saw a lovely view of the walled garden behind. The view from Sally’s window was narrow and showed mostly the car park. This was clearly the better side of the building to be on.
Outside people pushed patients around in wheelchairs. A couple of families were sitting on the grass near the mini orchard, one of the children nestled next to his mother, who was carrying his catheter bag in one hand and cuddling her son with the other.
‘Did she like the flowers?’ Grace said, making him jump.
He turned around and leaned against the sill, turning his back on the scenes below. ‘Pardon?’
‘The person you visit in the hospice. Did she like the roses?’ She leaned on the wall next to him, cradling her mug in both hands. She had a dust mask slung around her neck and there was a smudge across her nose. Peter decided not to mention it.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t say much.’
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘Coma.’
‘Ah.’ She nodded, as though he’d just said his wife was at the supermarket. He was used to the sudden intake of breath and the awkward pause while people frantically tried to think of what they should say. This was usually followed by profuse outpourings of sympathy or worse, pity. But Grace took it as though it were perfectly commonplace.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘That’s harsh.’ There was still no pity. No concerned voice. ‘At least you know she’ll be well looked after here.’
‘Yes.’ It was strangely comforting that she just took his revelation at face value. No questions. ‘She’s my wife,’ he added.
This seemed to be of more interest. ‘You must miss her terribly. How long have you been married?’
Did he miss her terribly? Yes. He did. ‘We’ve been married about eleven months.’
‘How long has she been comatose?’
‘About eleven months.’
She looked him full in the face. ‘Oh, that’s heartbreaking,’ she said, and this time there was sadness. ‘Did it happen on your honeymoon?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She sounded genuinely sad about it.
They sat in silence for a bit. Peter felt his head churning with a mix of emotions. He would normally be angry at this point, but he wasn’t now. Maybe it was being h
ere, in this convivial atmosphere. Maybe it was Grace and the way she accepted his pain without commenting on it. Whatever it was, he felt normal here. It was … nice. Comforting even.
‘So, who do you go to visit?’ he asked. ‘I see you around quite a lot.’
‘Margaret. She’s a friend of my mother’s. Or rather was a friend, when my mother was alive.’
So the mother was dead. Peter sifted through the implications and tried to find the right thing to say. There wasn’t one. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Grace shrugged.
‘Do you miss her?’
Grace looked up and met his gaze with her frank brown eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I do. But I’m glad for her sake that she died. She was in pain.’
Right. Well, that put him in his place then. In the pause that followed, he studied her. He had a sudden image of that thick black hair spread out around her face, rather than lying sensibly plaited down her back. How wonderful to feel those thick strands sliding through his fingers. The erotic nature of the thought startled him. He hadn’t thought about a woman like that in two years. Not since he met Sally. He looked away quickly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Grace said suddenly. ‘That was a bit of a conversation killer. I’m not very good at this social situation stuff. I’ve forgotten how to do small talk.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not exactly Mr Conversation either.’ Peter turned his head to look at her. ‘Shall we have another go?’ he said. ‘Let’s see. What’s a good conversation gambit? What do normal people talk about?’
‘I can’t remember. I told you I wasn’t very good at this.’
‘Right … let’s see … what are you doing next weekend? Anything exciting.’
